Randle P. McMurphy
Character Analysis

The protagonist of the novel. A gambling, thirty-five year old womanizer, McMurphy was transferred to the ward after potentially faking psychosis, because he believed the ward would be more comfortable than the work farm he had sentenced to work at. He is shocked by the emasculating control that Nurse Ratched has over the men, and becomes a radical, subversive force of change that inspires the men to challenge Ratched.

Randle P. McMurphy Quotes in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

The One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest quotes below are all either spoken by Randle P. McMurphy or refer to Randle P. McMurphy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

).
Note: all page and citation info for the quotes below refers to the Penguin Classics edition of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest published in 2002.

Part One
Quotes

You know, that's the first thing that got me about this place, that there wasn’t anybody laughing. I haven’t heard a real laugh since I came through that door, do you know that? Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing. A man go around lettin’ a woman whup him up and down till he can’t laugh any more, and he loses one of the biggest edges he’s got on his side. First thing you know he’ll begin to think she’s tougher than he is…

Related Characters:Randle P. McMurphy (speaker)

Related Symbols:Laughter

Related Themes:

Page Number and Citation:
63

Explanation and Analysis:

McMurphy points out the total absence of laughter in the mental ward. McMurphy hasn't heard any laughter since he arrived; furthermore, he sees the absence of laughter in his new hospital as a symbol of the broader problem with the ward. Laughter, as McMurphy sees it, is one of men's most important weapons, both against women and against authority in general. With laughter one can satirize authority, reminding people not to trust it under any circumstances. Stripped of their ability to laugh, however, the patients seem to have resigned themselves to the nurses' authority--they have given up their most basic defense against tyranny.

McMurphy, then, is a kind of clown, whose role is to oppose tyranny using humor and satire, thereby liberating his new friends from the nurses' control.

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You’re making sense, old man, a sense of your own. You’re not crazy the way they think.

Related Characters:Randle P. McMurphy (speaker), Chief Bromden

Related Themes:

Page Number and Citation:
117

Explanation and Analysis:

McMurphy meets Chief Bromden, his new bunk mate. The Chief refuses to speak for any reason, and everyone in the building seems to avoid him. And yet McMurphy notices Bromden right away, and regards him as wise and sensible. There's no good reason why McMurphy respects Bromden; Bromden hasn't done anything particularly brilliant or noteworthy. And yet McMurphy's quotation suggests why he's such a charismatic figure. McMurphy sees potential in everyone, regardless of how much or how little they talk.

The key words in this quotation are "a sense of your own." McMurphy doesn't claim to understand Bromden--why he's refusing to talk, for example. And yet McMurphy does acknowledge that there are many ways of looking at the world--many kinds of sense. Rather than dismiss the patients as insane, like Nurse Ratched, McMurphy celebrates the patients for their unique forms of "sense."

There was times that week when I’d hear that full-throttled laugh, watch [McMurphy] scratching his belly and stretching and yawning and leaning back to wink at whoever he was joking with, everything coming to him just as natural as drawing breath, and I’d quit worrying about the Big Nurse and the Combine behind her. I’d think he was strong enough being his own self that he would never back down the way she was hoping he would. I’d think, maybe he truly is something extraordinary. He’s what he is, that’s it. Maybe that makes him strong enough, being what he is. The Combine hasn’t got to him in all these years; what makes the nurse think she’s gonna be able to do it in a few weeks? He’s not gonna let them twist him and manufacture him.

Here Chief Bromden is beginning to see McMurphy as a hero. For Bromden, the world is firmly under the power of the Combine--the mysterious, dangerous force of mechanization and industry that controls all human beings. Bromden himself is the prisoner of the Combine--that's why he doesn't talk. And yet Bromden recognizes that McMurphy doesn't seem to be under the influence of the Combine at all. While other men are quiet and docile, since the Combine has crushed the life force out of them, McMurphy is bright and lively, an exemplar of the life force. Somehow, Bromden thinks, McMurphy hasn't allowed the Combine to destroy him.

While McMurphy himself probably wouldn't understand what the Chief was talking about, it's clear enough that he embodies a certain kind of strength and self-confidence that is sadly lacking in the hospital, and perhaps in society as a whole. In other words, the passage clarifies the point McMurphy made earlier about Bromden having his own "kind of sense." Bromden's descriptions of the Combine might not be true, literally, but they have a kind of poetic truth about them.

In the group meetings there were gripes coming up that had been buried so long the thing being griped about had already changed. Now that McMurphy was around to back them up, the guys started letting fly at everything that had ever happened on the ward they didn’t like.

Related Characters:Chief Bromden (speaker), Randle P. McMurphy

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Page Number and Citation:
144

Explanation and Analysis:

In this passage, we see the effect that McMurphy's presence has had on the group dynamic during hospital therapy sessions. Where before the group therapy sessions were quiet and useless, presided over by a calm Nurse Ratched, now they have become wild and argumentative. The men have been repressed in their frustrations for so long that they're glad to have an opportunity to "air grievances." And beyond dealing with current problems, they also talk about problems that they had long ago, but never had the courage to discuss.

It's possible to interpret the new dynamic of the therapy sessions as dangerous and pointless--as Bromden notes, the patients aren't really addressing problems that can be solved at all, because they happened so long ago. And yet the patients' airing of grievances does serve a useful purpose: it allows them to vent the frustration that's been building up inside them for years. So even if the patients' complaints aren't in themselves "useful," they pave the way for more productive and satisfying conversations in the future.

McMurphy doesn’t know it, but he’s onto what I realized a long time back, that it’s not just the Big Nurse by herself, but it’s the whole Combine, the nation-wide Combine that’s the really big force, and the nurse is just a high-ranking official for them.

Here, McMurphy prepares to defy the authority of Nurse Ratched one more time. He's angry that Ratched has punished the men for their disobedience by taking away their rec room--in retaliation, he's planning to shock Ratched and undermine her power. As always, Bromden interprets McMurphy's actions in his own terms--terms like "Combine," "fog," etc.

Although it's hard to take everything the Chief says literally, his words clearly have a metaphorical truth. It's been clear for some time that the hospital in the novel is a microcosm for modern American society--a society in which people's vitality is taken and they're forced to accept the identities society gives them. So when Bromden says that Nurse Ratched is only one small part of the total "Combine," we can't help but agree: Ratched is just a metaphor for the mechanization (and, as Kesey portrays it, the emasculation) of social order.

I couldn’t figure it at first, why you guys were coming to me like I was some kind of savior. Then I just happened to find out about the way the nurses have the big say as to who gets discharged and who doesn’t. And I got wise awful damned fast. I said, ‘Why, those slippery bastards have conned me, snowed me into holding their bag. If that don’t beat all, conned ol’ R. P. McMurphy,’…Well I don’t mean nothing personal, you understand, buddies, but screw that noise. I want out of here just as much as the rest of you. I got just as much to lose hassling that old buzzard as you do.

Related Characters:Randle P. McMurphy (speaker)

Related Themes:

Page Number and Citation:
165

Explanation and Analysis:

In this passage, McMurphy comes to terms with his situation in the hospital. Contrary to what he’d believed, McMurphy is being watched very closely: he can’t leave whenever he wants, and in fact is completely reliant on his nurses’ approval for release from the hospital. McMurphy was only behaving like a clown because he thought he had nothing to lose—he thought he had a definite exit date, and wanted to have a good time until then.

In a way, McMurphy’s admission in this quotation is disheartening for Bromden and the other patients. They’d assumed that McMurphy was being a kind of hero because he knew how much power Ratched exercised over him, and still wanted to stand up to her. Now, they realize that he’s just like them: he’s frightened of the nurses’ authority, and wants to get on their good side. Whether McMurphy will continue to be obedient or revert to his old ways, however, remains to be seen.

Tell me why. You gripe, you bitch for weeks on end about how you can’t stand this place, can’t stand the nurse or anything about her, and all the time you ain’t committed. I can understand it with some of those old guys on the ward. They’re nuts. But you, you’re not exactly the everyday man on the street, but you’re not nuts.

McMurphy has just learned that he’s involuntarily committed to the mental hospital until the nurses deem him fit to return to society. Furthermore, he discovers that the majority of the patients in the hospital are there voluntarily—they could leave at any time. McMurphy is shocked with the patients’ attitude: he naturally assumed that they were involuntarily committed, since no one would voluntarily live with Nurse Ratched and then complain about her so much. McMurphy ends his quotation with a reminder that he sees his peers as human beings, not “crazy people.” Even if Harding and Billy aren’t exactly average people, they’re perfectly capable of running their own lives.

The implicit answer to McMurphy’s question is that the patients lack the courage and determination to live without Nurse Ratched behind them. They hate a tyrannical, domineering woman controlling their lives, but they’re too cowardly to try anything else.

They could sense the change that most of us were only suspecting; these weren’t the same bunch of weak-knees from a nuthouse that they’d watched take their insults on the dock this morning. They didn’t exactly apologize to the girl for the things they’d said, but when they ask to see a fish she’d caught they were just as polite as pie. And when McMurphy and the captain came back out of the bait shop we all shared a beer together before we drove away.

McMurphy and his fellow patients at the hospital have left the hospital with supervisors (and a prostitute named Candy) and gone on a fishing trip. During the course of the excursion, Bromden notices an enormous change in the patients’ attitudes. They’re more relaxed and easygoing, and seem not to think of themselves as mentally diseased in any way. As a way of “measuring” the change in the patients, Bromden notes the way the dock workers who point McMurphy to the boat perceive the patients—instead of considering the patients oafish and ridiculous, they seem to think of the patients as "normal" people.

The normality of the fishing excursion culminates in the “sharing of a beer”—just about the most normal activity one can engage in in the United States. The message is clear: by treating his peers as ordinary, normal human beings, not specimens needing examination, McMurphy has cured them of many of their supposed psychological afflictions.

I still had my own notions—how McMurphy was a giant come out of the sky to save us from the Combine that was networking the land with copper wire and crystal, how he was too big to be bothered with something as measly as money—but even I came halfway to thinking like the others. What happened was this: He’d helped carry the tables into the tub room before one of the group meetings and was looking at me standing beside the control panel.

Related Characters:Chief Bromden (speaker), Randle P. McMurphy

Related Symbols:Gambling, The Control Panel

Related Themes:

Page Number and Citation:
231

Explanation and Analysis:

In this passage, Chief Bromden expresses some of his doubts about McMurphy’s character. Nurse Ratched has just implied that McMurphy is treating the other patients as “suckers,” winning away all their money in card games. Bromden doesn’t fully believe Ratched’s suggestions—he likes McMurphy too much to do so—and yet he does consider the possibility that McMurphy is just a con artist; Ratched’s implication by itself is enough to incriminate McMurphy, even in the eyes of the Chief, perhaps his most loyal follower.

And yet the passage illustrates the full extent of McMurphy’s worth in Bromden’s eyes. As Bromden sees it, McMurphy is a liberator, here in the hospital to save the patients from Ratched’s authority, and from the authority of the sinister, tyrannical Combine. The point here isn’t that Bromden is right or wrong about McMurphy (it’s entirely possible that McMurphy is just a con artist, with no great plans of crushing Ratched’s authority or battling injustice). What counts is that Bromden believes that he’s found a role model in McMurphy; whether or not McMurphy ultimately measures up to Bromden’s worship, he’s inspiring Bromden to escape from the hospital.

I tried to talk to [McMurphy] into playing along with [Nurse Ratched] so’s to get out of the treatments, but he just laughed and told me Hell, all they was doin’ was chargin’ his battery for him, free for nothing.

Chief Bromden, now McMurphy’s closest ally, tries to convince McMurphy to back off of intimidating Nurse Ratched. McMurphy and Bromden have been given the dreaded EST—shock therapy that gives them a seizure. Bromden has been terrified by his experiences with EST, and wants McMurphy to avoid having to receive the treatment in the future.

McMurphy, as tenacious as ever, refuses to back down. By this point in the novel, he’s decided that Nurse Ratched can’t defeat him. Even though he was previously worried that Ratched would use her authority to confine him to the hospital forever, he’s now more concerned about undermining her authority for its own sake. In another sense, McMurphy is trying to assert his own identity—masculine, strong, charismatic—instead of devolving into a docile, demure child.

Billy Bibbit has just committed suicide. Billy has had sex with a woman (with McMurphy’s encouragement) and afterwards seems to have lost his stammer and neurotic behavior. Nevertheless, he is humiliated when Nurse Ratched finds him with the woman, and immediately regains his neuroses. When Billy kills himself, Ratched blames McMurphy for egging Billy on and pushing him to do things he didn’t really want to do.

First, it’s important to note that Ratched accuses McMurphy of “playing God.” McMurphy has always been trying to challenge Ratched’s absolute authority over the hospital. Ratched sees herself as the “God” of the building, meaning that any other authority figure must be a “false prophet.” Also, of course, Ratched is the one who really drives Billy to kill himself, with her guilt and reminders of authority.

Second, it’s worth asking if Ratched has a point. Certainly, McMurphy has urged his friends, mental patients, into some bizarre, unfamiliar circumstances. As Ratched puts it, McMurphy is a gambler through and through—he’s organized parties and group outings without knowing how they’re going to turn out. In the end, then, what Ratched really objects to isn’t the fact that McMurphy threw a party or encouraged Billy to have sex—it’s that he did so without knowing what would happen next. McMurphy’s laid-back, uncertain approach to living life is the antithesis of Ratched’s orderly, authoritarian worldview (in McMurphy’s world, there’s no schedule; in Ratched’s there is only a schedule). In general, then, Ratched’s outburst sums up the differences between herself and McMurphy.

She tried to get her ward back into shape, but it was difficult with McMurphy’s presence still tromping up and down the halls and laughing out loud in the meetings and singing in the latrines. She couldn’t rule with her old power any more, not by writing things on pieces of paper. She was losing her patients one after the other. After Harding signed out and was picked up by his wife, and George transferred to a different ward, just three of us were left out of the group that had been on the fishing crew, myself and Martini and Scanlon.

After McMurphy attacks Nurse Ratched, her authority is broken forever. McMurphy is severely punished for his actions, as we’ll see. And yet by attacking Nurse Ratched, he accomplishes exactly what he wanted to: he liberates the patients of the hospital from Nurse Ratched’s tyranny. Like many a martyr, McMurphy is more powerful absent than present: in person McMurphy was a threat to Ratched’s power; now that he’s been sent away, the idea of McMurphy acts as a constant, 24/7 attack on Ratched.

The effects of Nurse Ratched’s loss of power are obvious: her patients leave. One by one, they regain certainty that they can control their own lives, and don’t need Ratched telling them what to do. Some, such as the Chief himself, remain behind, but by and large it’s clear that Ratched can no longer convince her subjects to obey her.

I was only sure of one thing: [McMurphy] wouldn’t have left something like that sit there in the day room with his name tacked on it for twenty or thirty years so the Big Nurse could use it as an example of what can happen if you buck the system. I was sure of that.

In this passage, Bromden comes face-to-face with the new McMurphy, who has been lobotomized as punishment for attacking the nurses. Bromden immediately recognizes what Nurse Ratched is aiming for: by lobotomizing McMurphy and then sending him back to his old hospital ward, Ratched is desperately trying to salvage her sinking authority. By parading McMurphy's lobotomized self around, Ratched is showing the other patients what happens to people who disobey her. McMurphy's fate, it seems, is to be a frightening reminder of why it's crucial to obey Ratched's authority. Notice that Bromden refers to the new McMurphy as an “it,” not a “he.” Bromden doesn’t really think of “McMurphy” as a human being at all any more: even though McMurphy’s body is intact, his mind (and, even more important, his indomitable spirit) is long-gone. McMurphy is as good as dead—the only question is, what will become of the body?

The big, hard body had a tough grip on life. It fought a long time against having it taken away, flailing and thrashing around so much I finally had to lie full length on top of it and scissor the kicking legs with mine while I mashed the pillow into the face. I lay there on top of the body for what seemed days. Until the thrashing stopped. Until it was still a while and had shuddered once and was still again. Then I rolled off. I lifted the pillow, and in the moonlight I saw the expression hadn’t changed from the blank, dead-end look the least bit, even under suffocation. I took my thumbs and pushed the lids down and held them till they stayed. Then I lay back on my bed.

Related Characters:Chief Bromden (speaker), Randle P. McMurphy

Related Themes:

Page Number and Citation:
278

Explanation and Analysis:

In the final pages of the novel, McMurphy is lobotomized for disobeying Nurse Ratched, and then returned to his old hospital ward. The Chief, horrified that his old friend has been reduced to a vegetable, decides to take matters into his own hands, literally: he kills McMurphy by smothering him to death. The Chief can’t stand to see McMurphy being defeated and manipulated—his lobotomization proves that Nurse Ratched has finally crushed McMurphy’s spirit (the very thing McMurphy was always most afraid of).

There’s also a more subtle side to Bromden’s actions in this quotation: by killing McMurphy, Bromden allows his old hero to die in a blaze of glory instead of being seen by the patients, his former followers. McMurphy the vegetable would be a piece of propaganda for Ratched: “Do as I say or you’ll get what he got.” Dead, McMurphy can continue to be a symbol of resistance to Nurse Ratched: he’ll live on, as wild and charismatic as he ever was.

Nurse Ratched is calling for McMurphy (initially as McMurphy, her error) about his refusal to follow protocol. She discusses him with...
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...about overheard conversations Harding has had concerning his wife’s breasts, and Harding closes his eyes. McMurphy makes a crass joke, and this almost flusters Nurse Ratched—some of the Acutes try not...
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...or why he insists she’s always been faithful, the other Acutes now sheepishly avoid him. McMurphy looks puzzled by the end and asks Harding if this is usually how the meetings...
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Harding agrees, after some convincing, that McMurphy is right, just that no one has ever dared to say it before. Harding says...
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...he was born a rabbit. Cheswick is the first to say he’s not a rabbit. McMurphy suggests that the men just shouldn’t answer Nurse Ratched’s questions but McMurphy learns what The...
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McMurphy encourages the men to start voting on anything. He says that the most unsettling thing...
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...their weapon, but they can’t use it against the nurse who they see as icy. McMurphy makes a bet that he can make Nurse Ratched lose her temper by the end...
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...lost in it. Bromden notes that the ward hasn’t been completely fogged up today, since McMurphy arrived.
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Music is constantly playing loudly overheard, and McMurphy doesn’t like it. He’s playing blackjack for cigarettes with the other patients. McMurphy nearly gets...
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McMurphy is given a bed next to Bromden, and as they are preparing for sleep he...
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The ward wakes up to the sounds of McMurphy singing in the shower. Everyone’s shocked to hear singing on the ward—which they haven’t in...
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Nurse Ratched arrives and prepares to punish McMurphy when she learns of his behavior, but he exits the bathroom with just a towel...
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McMurphy is especially cocky after his mild victory with Nurse Ratched. He spends the morning playing...
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Later that day, McMurphy has his admission interview with Dr. Spivey, and when McMurphy returns they are both laughing....
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McMurphy starts a game of Monopoly that has been going on for three days with Cheswick,...
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McMurphy does lose control once at the other patients for acting “too chicken-shit,” when none of...
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...in the fog, but he believes the fog makes him feel safe. He thinks that McMurphy doesn’t understand that he’s pulling all of them out of the fog, and in doing...
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...room, which he believes Nurse Ratched turned on because she’s going to do something to McMurphy. Bromden can vaguely hear what’s going on in the meeting: talking about Billy Bibbit’s stutter...
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McMurphy proposes another vote about watching the World Series, and Bromden watches as all twenty Acutes...
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When it’s time for afternoon chores, McMurphy says it’s game-time and he sits down in front of the TV and turns it...
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Part Two

Dr. Spivey begins a staff meeting to discuss McMurphy and the other residents (i.e. doctors in training) are all present. Nurse Ratched sits quietly...
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Bromden feels comforted by McMurphy’s ease, and feels as though the Combine doesn’t have the power over McMurphy that it...
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...rules on the ward, like having to take seven people with you to the latrine. McMurphy is satisfied with how things have changed, but is surprised that Nurse Ratched isn’t putting...
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McMurphy learns why Ratched is so calm when, that Wednesday, the ward is taken on a...
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Some of the patients suspect that McMurphy is playing a long con against Nurse Ratched, and that’s why he didn’t speak up—but...
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However, the other Acutes quickly catch on to why McMurphy is acting differently. None of them act mad or disappointed because they understand why McMurphy...
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...over him saying Sefelt has been refusing his anti-seizure medication. Nurse Ratched pointedly turns to McMurphy and says that Sefelt is an epileptic and this is what it looks like when...
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...visit to the ward. Harding does not appear in any way affectionate. He calls over McMurphy to introduce him. She mocks Harding for “never having enough” when he doesn’t have an...
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...in Building One. Across the hall from the X-ray office are those for electroshock therapy. McMurphy asks Harding what goes on in there, and Harding explains the Shock Shop (EST). Harding...
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McMurphy tells the men that he finally understands why none of them ever said anything to...
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Heading back to the ward across the grounds, McMurphy lags behind the others, smoking a cigarette. Bromden drops back to walk with him, wanting...
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Nurse Ratched ends the discussion. McMurphy shrugs and stretches as he stands up. Bromden says he can see it’s too late...
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Part Three

After McMurphy shatters the glass at the nurse’s station, he goes back to his rebellious ways while...
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Soon McMurphy reaches his one-month anniversary at the ward, which gives him the right to request an...
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McMurphy decides that if they can’t play basketball they should go fishing. Dr. Spivey approves the...
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McMurphy then tells the story of how when he was young he worked a job picking...
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McMurphy responds that Bromden is physically huge, but Bromden says he inherited his size from his...
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Bromden feels a sudden warmth towards McMurphy where he wants to touch him just because he’s there and “he’s who he is,”...
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...to take advantage of spineless Dr. Spivey, forcing him to buy extra-premium gas, but then McMurphy gets out of the car and says they’ll take regular gas and they’re a “government-sponsored...
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...Candy, while the patients cower and feel ashamed that they don’t stand up for her. McMurphy gives the captain a number to call for the waiver, and when the captain goes...
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On the boat, everyone drinks and starts catching big fish. McMurphy doesn’t help the men who plead with him to pull in the fish; he just...
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...there should be an investigation into the lack of lifejackets on board. The police depart. McMurphy is still riled up and gets in a brief fistfight with the captain, but they...
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...takes the patients outside to his car to look at the halibut he caught. Only McMurphy stays behind, saying he’s tired. Bromden notes that on the way back to the ward...
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Part Four

Nurse Ratched’s next play against McMurphy starts the day after the fishing trip. She posts a “statement of the patient’s financial...
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Bromden says he never felt suspicious about McMurphy until an event with the control panel. McMurphy wants to see if his training regimen...
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...phobia of cleanliness and he begs them not to spray him with their putrid salve. McMurphy loses his temper and gets into a fistfight with the aides, and Bromden joins in...
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Bromden and McMurphy are assigned beds next to each other, but Bromden isn’t tied down. He is woken...
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...next day and says that the patients agreed with the staff that it might help McMurphy to receive shock therapy unless he admits that he was in the wrong and demonstrates...
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